SamaCare – a cloud-based patient access platform for specialty medications – announced that it has closed an oversubscribed $17 million Series B investment round led by new investor Questa Capital. Questa was joined in the round by existing investors Vive Collective and South Park Commons.
With this new funding round, SamaCare will accelerate the product development of its one-stop patient access platform, which saves healthcare organizations time and resources while ensuring patients receive therapy sooner.
SamaCare’s cloud-based workflow automation platform for medical practices is built to streamline specialty drug prior authorization, enrollment, and benefit verification. And this new funding round comes as SamaCare showed its ability to streamline patient access to treatments, having started with the frustrating experience of prior authorizations, a manual, paper-heavy process that health plans often require before a patient can use a specific drug.
There are no commercial plan standards currently existing to regulate prior authorization requirements and processes. Prior authorization management is fragmented, inconsistent, and often analogous. As a result, it can delay or stop treatment for patients while creating unnecessary burdens for providers, patients, health plans, and other stakeholders.
SamaCare will be using the funding to build the comprehensive Script-to-Therapy Operating System. And it will enhance the platform’s capabilities to better serve patients, providers, and pharmaceutical companies in several ways, such as
— Expanding beyond prior authorizations for a seamless digital experience to create a single connected post-prescription workflow.
— Enhancing collaboration among healthcare teams within and between provider offices.
— Utilizing AI to cut administrative delays and tedious paperwork.
— Creating a data insights engine for a faster and more effective Script-to-Therapy journey.
SamaCare partners with 15,000+ providers and has helped some of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world. Pharmaceutical clients partnering with SamaCare have seen abandonment rates drop by 24%, time-to-approval cut by over 84% and a reduction in unnecessary administrative prior authorization denials by up to 42%.
KEY QUOTES:
“By digitizing the current manual paper-and-fax-heavy process, our platform reduces the administrative burdens that harm patient care, drive healthcare providers crazy, and raise costs for the system. The support of Questa Capital and our current investors will help us accelerate much-needed change to a cumbersome system.”
“We live in a time of medical miracles, but administrative and financial barriers to care are becoming more painful and time-consuming, impacting patients during their most challenging moments. The Script-to-Therapy Operating System aims to address these obstacles and provide treatments at the moment of need.”
– Syam Palakurthy, founder and CEO of SamaCare
“As a physician, I’ve navigated various administrative processes to secure vital medications for patients. Our team’s extensive experience with investments within the specialty pharmaceutical ecosystem has deepened our appreciation for SamaCare’s pivotal role in helping patients start and stay on their treatment regimens, ultimately leading to better outcomes.”
– Dr. Aabed Meer, Partner at Questa Capital
“The complex, targeted, and expensive nature of novel therapeutics creates friction in the system. SamaCare is a prime application of software and data intelligence that delivers clear ROI and benefit to all parties in the network,” said Cheng. “Vive Collective remains committed to supporting SamaCare’s journey to improve patients’ access to essential medications.”
– Vive Collective CEO Cheryl Cheng – who has been working with Palakurthy and his team since leading their Series A
